#TECH: Free digital skill training for online sellers

KUALA LUMPUR: Google and Lazada have announced free training courses for online sellers that will equip them with digital skills and help their businesses grow.

The partnership aims to provide small retailers with more educational resources to improve their online presence, especially during this challenging year.

On the Grow with Google site, small businesses across Southeast Asia can access free short courses by Lazada University as well as new interactive mini courses via the Google Primer app. The training courses will cover topics such as business strategy and digital marketing and will help address barriers of entry to starting an online shop. Lazada merchants can access the co-created content directly on the Lazada University Portal, with curriculums tailored for each country. They can also participate in sessions conducted by Google experts that are live-streamed on the Lazada University site.

“E-commerce has become an integral part of daily life for millions of Southeast Asians, and with more people shopping from home, we want to empower small businesses with the skills to thrive in this online environment,” said Google director, Ben King.

“We’ve committed to train 3 million SME workers in Southeast Asia on digital skills, and have already provided training to 2 million individuals. We’re excited to partner with Lazada as they share their expertise and help us extend our support to thousands of merchants on their platform,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lazada’s regional head of seller growth and engagement, Jon Chin, said the company is delighted to be partnering with Google on this initiative, which comes at just the right time, ahead of year-end mega shopping festivals like 11.11 and 12.12.

“We expect that it will be peak onboarding season during and after these sales campaigns, so this partnership can help equip sellers with digital skills in a short period of time, which will enable them to tap into online opportunities and ride on the year end holiday season to boost their sales. Given that in the past year, we have seen an online migration of sellers onto our platform, we expect that this initiative can support many SMEs across the region to transition effortlessly into digital commerce,” he said.

Source: NST